 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: hearnp
Date: 2005-03-24 04:10
I am new to Oboe about 6 months. I love the instrument... What I have noticed is that reeds can be very fussy... I have purchased several reeds from various vendors and have found that they are not always consistent... what I mean is the pitch is different for different reeds.... However I have found 2 reeds that always give me great pitch.... when I play A or F# that is what I get. My question is waht am I doing wrong?
Appreciate any ideas!
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2005-03-24 15:34
Are you buying your reeds "over-the-counter", or are you having them custom (hand) made for you?
I think most of us go through what you are describing, with any two reeds (even from the same maker) being at risk for sounding high or low, depending on a variety of circumstances which would include the cane, the thoroughness of the scrape, the current atmospheric pressure and relative humidity, phases of the moon, and so on.
My advice is to try to work with a custom reedmaker (several very good ones are online and at Ebay) and learn to make final adjustments yourself. It is not hard to do -- witness the fact that even I can do it -- and can make the difference between a wonderfully reliable and playable reed, and one that disappoints.
Susan
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2005-03-24 21:00
Well, okay, Suzan, that's in a perfect world. ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif) But in the real world, some of us have to live with OTC reeds.
I've been playing the oboe since...[checks calendar]...March 4, I can now play it for, oh, at least five minutes at a stretch without my embouchure dissolving and my right hand terminally cramping, and what's driving ME nuts right at the moment is precisely the issue of reed flatness. I was given a Medium reed with the oboe, which is a Selmer plastic (used), so I assume that it's a Selmer OTC reed, and it was on pitch (I play piano, guitar, and recorder, so I know how it's SUPPOSED to sound, also I have the Essential Elements CDs to play along with), but it was a bugger to blow, you know? Very hard to get sound out.
So I've been reading here and elsewhere on the Internet, and also a couple of books from the library, and this one website suggested Medium Soft for beginners. So I ordered two Fox Medium Softs over the Internet from Musician's Friend, which is really the top end I can pay for, no $20 custom-made reeds for me, sorry, and they blow a lot easier, but they're FLAT as all getout.
So my question is, which I'm getting to...are all OTC Medium Soft reeds going to be flat as all getout? Or is it just a Fox thing? Or is it just a luck-of-the-draw OTC reed thing? Should I get a couple of Fox Mediums and see if they're flat, too? It's 20 bucks a pop for two reeds, including shipping. I'm not made of money here.
I turn 50 this year, and after having always wanted to play the oboe, but being too shy to speak up in 5th grade when they brought the band instruments around, I finally just went down to the store and bought one. And I'm learning to play it, and I'm looking for a job to pay for it, as I can't expect my husband to buy me a $1300 oboe just for my mid-life crisis.
Someday I may get up enough nerve to ask a teacher to listen to me. Meanwhile, this forum has been a life-saver and an eye-opener the last couple of weeks, and y'all have no idea how much I appreciate you.
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2005-03-24 21:38
Wow, Dutchy --
I relate to so much of what you have written! Except the thing about not being able to find a good reed for cheap. I would like to recommend two particular Ebay sellers to you (I hope you know how to buy things on Ebay):
listing title: "2 OBOE REEDS HANDMADE BY PROFESSIONAL OBOIST"
seller name: oboereed 1109
each reed is $10.00, sold in lots of two
listing title: "Three Great Hand-Finished Oboe Reeds by Brian Charles"
seller name: charles*double*reed*company
right now, he's got three reeds going for $7.50 (that $7.50 for THREE, not $7.50 each)
The first reeds listed here are "professional"; the second are "student". My guess is that if you dropped a note to oboereed1109 (who is a lovely nice lady named Kathy), she would make you up a student reed, too -- maybe even cheaper.
Brian Charles is the proprietor of a major double reed supplier on the East Coast. Totally reputable. Can't go wrong with either of these folks.
If for some reason you can't/don't use Ebay, you can drop a note to either one of these folks and deal with them privately.
OK -- I'm going to post this, and then write you another note about some other things.
Best wishes,
Susan
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Author: UNKoboist
Date: 2005-03-25 04:51
When you go to the store, hold the reed up to the light so your looking through the staple (cork). If the end looks like an oval on top of an oval it is tied on correctly. If it is slanted, it is defected. However, this isn't a sure cure, store bought reeds will not sound as good as reeds you make yourself. Unfortunatley, company made reeds are like Great Value icecream, you much rather have TCBY.
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Author: hearnp
Date: 2005-03-25 16:54
Thanks, some great advice... since my last post I went out and purchased a reed that is what the store referred to as a hard reed.... when I tried it on my oboe I was amazed with the sound... exactly what I wanted.... This is great I now have 2 reeds that I can rely on. I was wondering what the difference is between the two reeds (soft and hard)? By the way I found the hard reed easier to blow. I am so new at this ... I don't think I am ready for making my own reeds. I saw on the internet a reed made of fibercane... plastic...I was curious how they could work.
Thanks for the feedback!
Paul
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2005-03-25 20:57
<<< listing title: "Three Great Hand-Finished Oboe Reeds by Brian Charles"
seller name: charles*double*reed*company
right now, he's got three reeds going for $7.50 (that $7.50 for THREE, not $7.50 each)
...
Brian Charles is the proprietor of a major double reed supplier on the East Coast. Totally reputable. Can't go wrong with either of these folks. >>>
Okay, is this "Brian Charles with the Charles Double Reed Company" affiliated with the Charles Music/Charles Double Reed online? Is it the same guy/people? Because I don't see reeds on their website going for 3/$7.50--their reeds go for $9.00 each.
http://www.charlesmusic.com/cgi-bin/theo?action=category&main_category=Reeds&sub_category=Oboe%20Reeds
How can he possibly be selling reeds 3 for $7.50? Is it possible it's a typo? Everywhere I look on the Internet, even the El Cheapo mass-produced-by-Chinese-slave-labor reeds go for more than that. I'd tend to be suspicious of reeds that were way cheaper than usual. Generally speaking, "you get what you pay for".
And, "if something seems too good to be true--it is." 
I'm such a cynic.
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Author: Joeboetheoboe
Date: 2005-03-26 00:32
I too have not learned how to make reeds. I have found an exeptionally good reed. Great price, great reed, that is not heard of. If you go to www.wwbw.com woodwind and brass wind's web site the artist oboe reeds are exceptional! Most have a good tone to them and need little work done to them. Hope this helps!
Joboe
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Author: pseudoobe
Date: 2005-03-26 01:27
First I am not an oboe player, but my wife took it up 2 years ago after a 50 year recess. She is taking lessons from an oboe specialist at a local university. The instructor works with reeds but does not make them-she is knowledgeable. We tried numerous over-the-counter sources/makers and gave up. My wife is now using only professional level reeds - her reduced frustration is worth the money. My wife's instructor uses and recommended Reliable Reeds (www.reliablereeds.com). This has seemed to be the most consistent reed source. Although she had had several that had problems. He has about a 6-month waiting list to get onto and you need to take one reed per month. The other source that had been consistent until the last order is North Texas Oboe Reeds & Cane (www.oboereeds.safeshopper.com). Two of the four reeds ordered had problems. Another possibility might be www.oboeworks.com. Their Professional Oboe Reed Z did work. We had two Charles Pro oboe reeds that were unstable and sent them back. They were very good about service. My wife is playing a Yamaha 411 oboe and her embouchure is refined enough that it is not a problem. We store her reeds in a plastic tupper ware container that contains a salt solution to maintain 75% relative humidity. Most of the reeds we gave up on would not crow a C in any octave. I realize that cane must be extremely variable, but I suspect quality control of finished reeds gets lax. Hope this saves you some of the grief that we had.
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2005-03-26 02:54
I've never tried Reliable Reeds, and I have had a bad experience with the WW&BW reeds.
The North Texas Oboe Reeds are very good (and very expensive). And they took just short of forever getting it to me. Oboeworks is good. So is Stuart Dunkel, and Oxford Reeds. Andrea Hall makes nice reeds (Ebay). And Kerry who sells on Ebay under the name of Reedmaker makes very playable reeds, too. Singing Dog (online) is also good. I also like the pro silver thread from Nielsen (online). Then there's the Good Tone Guild (online), which makes the hardest reeds on the planet. But all these are expensive.
I don't know why, Dutchy, you would doubt that the Charles Double Reed seller on Ebay is anybody but Brian Charles. Yes, it is the same company. Write him and ask! Companies often sell things in different venues for different prices. I haven't looked at the auction today, but yesterday it was 3/$7.50 -- student reeds. That might change, of course. But it's still going to be cheap.
And I would just like to say, once again, that Kathy DiCola, selling as oboereed1109 on Ebay, makes absolutely lovely reeds, and they typically go for 2/$20.
There are many good reedmakers, online and on Ebay, but most are expensive. The point of my earlier post was to mention a couple of good, less-expensive reedmakers (Brian Charles and oboereed 1109). You DO NOT have to settle for machine made reeds!
Susan
P.S. I just looked at the Brian Charles reeds on Ebay. They are actually going for $7.05 EACH right now. Still a bargain.
Post Edited (2005-03-26 03:10)
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2005-03-26 14:02
K, thanks for the input. I wondered about the "Charles" thing mainly because there *are* Evil People out there who find that they can sell cheap knockoffs by cashing in on a similarity between their name and the name of a Famous Business, so I wouldn't be *surprised* to find someone, say, named "Foxx" selling "Foxx Oboes" on eBay. Like I said, I'm an awful cynic. And "caveat emptor" and all that.
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2005-03-26 19:02
I would like to share, especially with Dutchy, my experience as a self-taught late-life oboe beginner. Like you, I had wanted to play the oboe *forever*, but it was always "No, we need you on the clarinet."
So I figured, "Someday." Well, you know, life has this tendency to get away from you. So it wasn't until the Fall of 2003 that I actually got myself an oboe and gave it a try (I graduated from high school in 1962, if anybody wants to do the math). I had played recorder and had continued with the clarinet, and was what you would call an "advanced amateur" on those instruments. So I figured I could teach myself the oboe.
And I did. I used the Rubank methods, and found a variety of good books (like Jay Light's "Essays for Oboists") and websites (Martin Schuring's pages at Arizona State are top-drawer http://www.public.asu.edu/~schuring/main.html). Before too long, I was tootling very contentedly, and even starting to play with others.
But one thing was driving me nuts, and that was reeds. All the "good" reeds I had tried seemed just way, way too hard. And of course, the so-called "student" reeds were blatty, ducky, mushy, flat, and whatever else negative you might want to call that awful sound they make.
The upside of this situation is that I learned how to adjust reeds pretty well. The downside, of course, is that I wrecked a lot of reeds in the process, and still couldn't figure out what was wrong with my playing, that I couldn't use a "medium" pro reed.
So, after a year of being my own teacher, I got up the courage to find someone who knows what they are doing to work with me. I *do* understand the courage that it takes to find a teacher. It was extraordinarily difficult for me to take this step. Playing musical instruments is the most important thing in my life, and I always am afraid that somebody is going to tell me to forget it, sit down, shut up, go home -- that I have no business trying. (This is definitely not a rational fear, but it is real, nonetheless.)
So, I go to the teacher (a very kindly person, thank God) and play a little Telemann for her. And when she gets done cringing, she says, "You play very well, but it would be nice if you could warm up your tone a little." (She is good at understatement.)
Seems that I had a fundamental misunderstanding of how to get the air into the oboe. I didn't realize that you actually have to put the air down into the little reed opening. I was just putting the reed into my mouth and letting the sucker vibrate. Which is why I sounded essentially like a kazoo.
What she taught me to do was to go "ooo" and then roll the lips inward, keeping them round, and tightening on the sides only, and leaving just the tiniest opening right in the center, which is where you put the tip of the oboe reed. Your lips should not be going up in a smile, and your chin and jaw will feel open and down. You play as much on the tip of the reed as possible. (I think of it almost as if I am playing a trumpet with a really small mouthpiece. )
She told me to practice this is a mirror, and record myself on a tape recorder. I did. Talk about scary! It wasn't pretty to look at, nor was it pretty to hear. And it took me the better part of two weeks to get this new way of doing things to the point where I could play anything but "The First Noel". But when it clicked in, it really clicked.
And lo and behold, what do you know. All of a sudden, *all* my too-hard reeds were TOO SOFT!! Which is the point of this whole message: if you have tried a lot of supposedly "good" reeds and they all seem bad, there is probably something you are doing wrong, and it probably has to do with your embouchure.
Today, I am playing very happily on medium-hard pro reeds, and I haven't found *any* that I couldn't use (with, perhaps, a little adjustment). And I am getting very positive reviews on my playing from everyone who hears me. Going to the teacher, as traumatic as that was, was the single best thing I could have done for myself.
Susan
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2005-03-27 20:22
<<< What she taught me to do was to go "ooo" and then roll the lips inward, keeping them round, and tightening on the sides only, and leaving just the tiniest opening right in the center, which is where you put the tip of the oboe reed. Your lips should not be going up in a smile, and your chin and jaw will feel open and down. >>>
Compare and contrast with this. She says to go "ooo", too, but she's got a photo of a kid with a purportedly optimal embouchure, and her praiseworthy "flat chin and firm corners" sure looks like a smile to me. Adn it doesn't look "open and down", either.
http://www.oboesforidgets.com/tips2.htm
I do definitely take your point about the way that only a face-to-face with a teacher can give you stuff that the Internet won't, but I'm definitely not up to the level yet where I can call a stranger and ask her to give me lessons.
My goal right at the moment is to be able to play all the way through the first 61 exercises of the Essential Elements book without having to sit down and rest my mouth for five minutes in between every one. I spend more time resting in between verses of "Go Tell Aunt Rhodie" than I do actually playing.
Still, on the upside, it does begin to sound like an actual oboe, here and there, and my children have stopped fleeing the upstairs in panic when Mom gets the oboe out in the evenings.
Now they just shut their doors. So that's progress, I guess.
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2005-03-27 21:25
LOL, Dutchy!
Our kids are all out of the house, so we don't have them as implicit critics. My 92-year-old mother-in-law lives with us now, but she is stone deaf, and just figured out a month or so ago that what I play is not a flute, which is what she always called my clarinet.
So, our only critic is the dog. Interestingly enough, the clarinet (especially the bass clarinet, which my husband plays) drives her to howling fits, but about the oboe she has as yet made very little comment.
I've seen that photo on the oboeforidgets site. I see what you mean about it looking like she has a smile going on there. Actually, if you look at her lips only, they are very straight, and the little smiley thing in the corners is just her cheeks pinching together. She's got one heck of a flat chin, though!
I have seen a photo of Tabuteau (the founder of the American school of oboe playing, even though he was French, and French-trained), and he does in fact seem to have his lips drawn back in a way that my teacher would not approve. And don't even think about his posture!
The trouble with photos of people playing the oboe is that the *real* business part of the embouchure doesn't show on the outside. In my favorite book (the one by Jay Light), he goes into some detail about the difference between what he calls the "Cabbage Patch Doll" embouchure and the "Anteater", and he includes humorous line drawings of each. His point is that we should aim for a feeling of roundness and the lips being "pushed in", rather than a feeling of narrowness and the lips being "pulled out".
I had read all this early in my oboe playing experience, and I certainly *thought* I was doing this, but what I found out is that I wasn't doing it to the degree necessary. I would go "ooo", or whistle, and round it in, but really I wasn't keeping it rounded enough. The lips have to be very, very pushed in and round -- for me, to the point where at first I felt like I could hardly do it.
Now that I have learned a better embouchure, I can tell you it *feels* very much like how the "anteater" drawing looks -- but it doesn't actually look that way, at all. It just looks straight, or a little bit down in the corners.
As far as the "open" quality of the embouchure, that is, again, an inside job more than something visible. It's just a way of saying that your top teeth and bottom teeth should be held apart as much as you can without muscle strain -- probably consciously, at first. After a while, you will just do it "naturally". If your teeth/jaw is open, your chin can't help but be down. If your jaw is not open, your chin may be jutting up or out.
More power to you! It WILL get better.
Susan
Post Edited (2005-03-27 21:35)
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Author: oboeblank
Date: 2005-03-28 00:51
This post has really nothing to do with reeds but...
The concepts that oboe teachers teach- "ooo", flat chin, corners in-all of these things don't really look like what they are supposed to. Your embouchure looks nothing like you are whistling when you are in playing position it looks more like a compact straight line, but the sensation to achieve that compact straight line needs the sesation of whistling, flat chin and corners in. It is always difficult when you are dealing in abstract concepts. We cane take heart that we are not singers, those poor people have some of the "sketchiest" teaching ever.
I would also like to address you fear or reluctance to search out a teacher. you are at the perfect point to put yourself in the hands of a capable teacher. Hopefully you have not created bad habits, which are really difficult to fix the longer you let them go on. There is nothing that teachers hate more in the world than kids and adults who have learned improper techniques because they recieved very little guidance in the formative months of playing because they are murder to correct. You may think that everything is going along fine, but a teacher can say one thing which will unlock everything.
I"ll tell you one little story. I had a 56 year-old woman start oboe lessons with me because she always wanted to. She showed up and had an orchestral excerpt book and played solos from the Brahms symphonies, with some difficulty, but after a couple of weeks things started to really click for her. She plays quite well now that she performs some solos at her church.
Teachers are there to help, look one up.
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2005-03-30 20:22
Yes, thanks, it is getting better. We progress, we progress...Today during practice I realized I could exhale (and inhale) through my *nose*, instead of having to take the reed out of my mouth and do those big gasping whale-spouting exhale-and-inhales on every rest, which were alarming my husband last night as he lay there on the bed watching me practice. "Is it *supposed* to look like you're dying?" Um, no.
I also made myself a reed case today out of an old pencil box and three of those rubber doohickeys that Black & Decker drill bit sets come in, which it occured to me are exactly the diameter of the reed. Thirty seconds with a glue gun and voila! The World's Ugliest Reed Case. :D
But at least it's better than having the reeds rolling around loose on top of my dresser...
Post Edited (2005-03-30 20:23)
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Author: oboeblank
Date: 2005-03-31 15:16
What do you mean inhale through your nose? Are you not taking the reed out of your mouth to take in inhalation or are you circular breathing-which means that you are pushing the air out with your cheek muscles at the same time?
There are a couple of things that are important here. You cannot get enough air into your lungs through two little spaghetti strands that are your nostrils. Singers never inhale through their noses, and no other wind player or brass player inhales through their nose. Breathing in through your mouth is a much quicker and efficient way to get air to your lungs to propell the sound. The other important factor is you need to disengage your reed from your lips to get blood flowing back to them. If you don't temporarily remove your lips from the reed you will get very tired very quickly and you will be cutting your practise time in half and slowly make progress.
You may feel that the only important thing is making a sound but there is a difference between a sound and a well produced sound. Try to get your hands on books by Jay Light, he has great things to say about buliding a foundation for playing.
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2005-03-31 16:06
<Singers never inhale through their noses, >
While I agree with oboeblank in the main, I would quibble with this statement. In fact, singers are sometimes taught to begin with a long nose breath, as a method of insuring a deep inhalation with relaxed shoulders.
But the point about not being afraid to let go of the reed is very well taken. You do, indeed, have to learn to get on and off the reed quickly and accurately.
It becomes automatic after a while, even though at first you might want to take your time to make sure everything is where it ought to be. This is one area where my teacher's suggestion to practice looking into a small mirror on your stand was helpful.
Susan.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-04-01 14:12
From the "Soaking Reeds" string:
Ed Lacy did the definitive experiment, which he published in the IDRS Journal in 1988 http://www.idrs.org/Publications/Journal/JNL16/JNL16.Lacy.Exper.html
He found that cane could be soaked indefinitely. Growth of algae and mould could be prevented by using distilled water, capping the container, keeping it in the dark and changing the water after the first, third and fifth days.
For bassoon cane, the salts were soaked out after three days. For thinner oboe cane, the period could be shorter.
He found that reeds were much improved and more consistent after soaking the cane. This included reeds that were already finished.
The experiment is practically free -- just getting the distilled water -- and seems worth trying.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2005-04-02 13:15
Oh, okay, so you *are* supposed to take the reed out of your mouth to breathe? I thought the idea was to leave it in and breathe through your nose. When I see oboists playing on PBS ("Great Performances", etc.), I don't see them take the reed out of their mouth to take big gasping whale-spouting exhale/inhale breaths through their mouth--is that just an "editing" thing, then, and they *are* breathing through their mouth, only not just when the camera is looking? Or do you just learn to gasp for air unobtrusively? Or maybe you learn some biofeedback techniques to keep from turning blue? :D
My hot-glued reed holders didn't stick to the plastic of the pencil box, popped right off after a while, so now I am experimenting with holding them down with self-adhesive velcro.
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2005-04-02 13:38
That's a really fascinating article, but...
1. He's addresssing the issue of how long you should soak cane in order to make reeds from it, not how long you should soak already-completed reeds before trying to play on them. I have no doubt that leaching excess salts from a wood product will tend to make it more pliable, but does removing excess salts from an already-completed non-leached reed *also* make it play better? He doesn't address this. He does not do the next logical experiment, which would be to soak finished reeds made from non-leached cane for long periods of time and see whether it made them play better.
2.
<<< all twelve were playable, and six were considered excellent, while four others were very good. >>>
But, isn't this about the statistical average you'd expect from any given group of cane (assuming an experienced reed-maker)? That out of 12 pieces of cane, you'd probably get 6 excellent, 4 very good, and (presumably) 2 playable-but-not-very-nice duds?
So leaching the sodium out of the cane before you make the reed doesn't demonstrably prove that you'll get a better reed.
3. I also note that he's a bassoonist by profession. Thus I'm assuming he's working with bassoon reeds here. My understanding is that bassoonists are told to soak their reeds before playing for 5 to 7 minutes, whereas oboists are told to soak their reeds before playing for 1 to 2 minutes. Therefore, it sounds to me like bassoon reeds need more soaking to begin with, being bigger and thicker, and that therefore bassoon reeds might benefit from longer soaking, but that oboe reeds might not.
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Author: oboeblank
Date: 2005-04-02 19:09
With practice you will be able to take very un-noticable breaths and learn that a really large gasping breath is not going to fill you lungs up as a very quick and controled breath.
Imagine someone jumping out from behind a tree. Now try to think of that quick intake of air. Notice [maybe] how your lungs fill quickly and near the waist band or belt of your pants.
The other thing that I have often seen with my own students and went through it also as a student was that oboists, in the words of Marcel Tabuteau, are always suffocating from TOO MUCH AIR! Think of this; the reed opening is so small that we never adequately expell all of the air in our lungs and we often have a back up of stale air that needs to be exhaled before we can take a 'nourishing' oboe breath. You could be, as Tabuteau says, suffocating from too much air and you feel as though you need more air, when you probably need to get rid of some air.
Experiment with getting rid of some air before you play a phrase and see if you can still play and are not gasping at the end of the phrase.
Joe Robinson, the now retired principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic wrote an article entitled "Exhale before playing". Perhaps it is somewhere out there in cyberspace.
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Author: vboboe
Date: 2005-05-30 00:41
... ah, reeds ... 'tis the under-developed embouchure that thinks it's only the reed (it might be, too) ... give yourself more time to build your embouchure, finicky reeds have a way of behaving better when lipped more skillfully ...
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2005-05-30 19:55
Amen to that, vboboe!
I can't tell you how many reeds I went through, of all sorts, as a beginner, trying to find some that would work the way I thought they were supposed to work. I started thinking that everybody made their reeds too hard and out of tune.
Then, over time, I developed a much better embouchure. After one particular embouchure modification took hold, I was astounded to find that I actually had a bunch of pretty good reeds in my case -- the problem was me, not the reeds.
Now, although I do have a favorite reedmaker, many different reeds "work" for me.
Susan
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2005-06-27 20:41
Best commercial reed I've found.....K Ge reeds from Australia. expensive but great reeds. John
Freelance woodwind performer
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